QUINCY - Of the 10 largest communities in Massachusetts, only the cities of Quincy and Springfield don’t own their streetlights.

As a result, these cities must rely on their electricity providers to fix broken streetlights. At-large City Councilor Doug Gutro said National Grid, the city’s power company, does this at a “glacial pace.”

City councilors Tuesday said they’re eager for the city to move ahead with its purchase of 6,000 streetlights from National Grid, and convert them to light emitting diode, or LED, technology. More than a year after Mayor Thomas Koch announced his plans to buy and convert the lights, the deal still hasn’t been finalized.

In the meantime, residents are still relying on the utility company to fix streetlights.

“It’s very frustrating for us, from the constituents’ side of this, to say ‘we’re waiting for National Grid,’” Ward 1 Councilor Margaret Laforest said.

Al Grazioso, Koch’s director of operations, said the city is waiting for National Grid to provide additional materials before the legal department can sign off on the purchase.

“It should be soon,” Grazioso said.

Grazioso said the city will purchase roughly 6,000 streetlights, as well as 365 light poles, from National Grid for $1. The lights are essentially free, Grazioso says, because the state’s Department of Public Utilities found that the lights had depreciated so much that the they have no value.

When reached late Tuesday, Deborah Drew, a spokeswoman for National Grid, said she couldn’t get more information about the company’s pending streetlights agreement with Quincy until today. In response to comments about National Grid’s services, Drew issued the following statement:

“Our goal is always to arrive at the best possible outcome for all parties involved.”

Grazioso said the city has already hired an electric contractor, Coviello Electric of Woburn, to maintain the existing streetlights, which are high-pressure sodium bulbs, once the city owns them. When the city converts to LED, it must decide whether to maintain them using city employees.

“We would look to see what would be most cost-effective – maintaining them ourselves or staying with a private (contractor),” Grazioso said.

By buying the lights, Grazioso said the city will save about $350,000 in annual maintenance costs.

In 1998, it became legal in Massachusetts for municipalities to buy streetlights from utility providers. Since then, almost all of the state’s largest cities, including Boston, Worcester, Cambridge and Brockton, have acquired their streetlights.

Clint Schuckel, an engineer for Siemens, the firm hired by the city to study its streetlights, said LEDs use 50 to 75 percent less energy and have life spans at least three times longer than high-pressure sodium lights.

Page 2 of 2 - To install LEDs, Schuckel said it costs between $300 to $400 per light. For Quincy, this would equate to a cost of $1.8 million to $2.4 million. But Schuckel said the city would recoup these costs through energy savings within eight years.

The city’s pending purchase from National Grid does not include every streetlight in Quincy. The city already owns about 300 ornamental lights located mostly in the city’s business districts, and the city won’t buy National Grid’s streetlights along Quincy Shore Drive and Furnace Brook Parkway, which are roadways owned by the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation.